Ken Livingstone denies ‘scaling down’ £150-a-head gay fundraiser

Post your comment

Reader comments

So the price has been reduced from 200 quid a ticket to 10 quid a ticket; to allow more people to attend.

But this is a fundraiser.

Is the Shadow Lounge, 20 times bigger than the Grand Connaught Rooms.

Or is Livingstone lying.

After all thanks to Ken Livingstone’s spirited defence of genocidal homophobic maniac Yusuf Al Qaradawi, and his point blank refusal to make a pledge to never knowingly associate with genocidal homophobes, means that no LGBT person in their right mind should ever vote for Livingstone.

Therefore if you have a fundraising event which costs 200pounds a ticket and decide to change venue and charge a new price of only 10 pounds, then it means you will raise LESS funds.

All clear so far?

Therefore it would seem that Ken Livingston moved to a cheaper, smaller venue because no-one was interested in paying for a 200 pound ticket to see a man who is willing to trade our human rights to be friends with murderous homopphobes.

David – many LGBT people recognise that Ken has 30 years worth of public life supporting LGBT equality…. and fully aware of the hysterical smears by right wingers… I am happy to say the tickets are selling well. Needless to say Boris (“gay marriage = bestiality”) has not mentioned LGBT equality, nor supported Stonewall but simply cancelled Soho Pride funding causing the festival to be cancelled.. Ken supports LGBT marriage equality.. Someone somewhere must really feel desperate that Boris will lose the election. Boris raises tube fare and Ken promises to cut them.

Al Qaradawi was called a moderate by The Sun when he condemned the 9/11 bombings. Funny now that Ken looks like he might win he is suddenly branded “genocidal”. The Bible states in Leviticus “man who lies with man” should be punished by death? Therefore surely the Pope & Church of England could also be described as “gencodal”.

And why would any LGBT person want to support Ken Livingstone when his LGBT policy seems to comprise of repeating ‘I was nice to you 20 years ago when no-one else was, so forget about the fact that my position then, has become mainstream, and also please forget that I will gladly throw the LGBT population under the bus as soon as it is convenient for me.’

Boris, Johnson wrote that “if gay marriage was OK – and I was uncertain on the issue – then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men, or indeed three men and a dog.” In recent years Johnson has played down his previous support for the anti-gay law known as Section 28.

Wow this is really clutching at straws isnt it? Ken is putting on an event for the LGBT community – and always has – Boris has done nothing for the community, and could not even be bothered to turn up to Pride last summer. Its clear that Ken outranks Boris on the LGBT community. I doubt Boris would be able to put on an LGBT event of his own anyway, given his comments saying Gay marriage is like 3 men and a dog getting married.

Why are you trusting Andrew Gilligan, who works for the Telegraph?? He clearly only cares about attacking Ken and getting the Tories elected (as is evidenced by his chillingly stalker like accounts on his blog) rather than advancing the LGBT communities, as Ken has done over a number of years, otherwise he would not be on the payroll of a vile rag like the Telegraph.

yeah and the event was packed out and popular. not that you would think it reading these blogs and postings by the blue media (ive dropped the term pink press as its clearly not true). Still, what do 200 people matter for an event in the LGBT community when a handful of tories outside, and an even smaller number of bloggers appear to have the most important voices?

I’d have thought that Gilligan has a very good reason for being anti Labour as Labour and Blair in particular wrecked his career because he’d found out the truth about the dodgy dossier. They accused him of lying, of treason, of allsorts in order to destroy him. It took years before what Gilligan reported was accepted as truth. By which time Blair was responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent Iraqi’s and had become unofficial ruler of the world.

So yes, Gilligan is anti Labour, who wouldn’t be in his situation. But he also happens to be someone who tells the truth.

Well I like Boris. I think he’s done way more for London than Ken ever did.
As usual, you blinkered selfish idiots can only see what they offer LGBT people, instead of the much bigger picture. (Or does being gay mean you are not just an ordinary Londoner?)

Buses used to run to a strict timetable and companies were fiined if they missed targets. since boris came in buses can run as they like and I have seen buses in 2’s and 3’3. My record is 7 on route 159 ay edgware road.

Are you kidding me? Buses never came in 2s & 3s when Ken was mayor? That’s the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard. Of course they bloody did – and I regularly witnessed elderly people trying to get to their bus stuck way behind a bendy or two. Any morefairytales to share with us? Perhaps buses flew when Ken was mayor too.

what like putting up tube fairs and cutting police? ordinary londoners need Boris like they do a routemaster bus that keeps breaking down even though it cost a million pounds in our money to make….oh… hang on….

What a come down.
Maybe LGBT people are now seeing Ken in his true colours, which are clo0ser to yellow than red. After hanging around with decidedly dodgy muslims in order to win his vote he has managed to alienated every gay that ever liked hims, so he has gone from a grand sale at Harrods to a car boot sale in Soho.

The comments on here seem rather harsh, especially towards Ken. The event in question is a fund raiser in support of his campaign, it is organised by people who want to support him and not by him. Moving venues has nothing to do with Ken but those organising the event who may wish to ensure greater access to speak to the candidate and hear what they have to say rather than making a barrel load of money for a campaign.
As for the record on who delivers both for LGBT people and all working people in London what the f… has Boris done. Ken has delivered and deserves better than some of the stupid comments on here.

“Moving venues has nothing to do with Ken but those organising the event who may wish to ensure greater access to speak to the candidate and hear what they have to say rather than making a barrel load of money for a campaign.”

What an incredibly naive statement.

Fundraisers are to raise the maximum funds possible.

The venue and price have changed because the LGBT community has abandoned Ken Livingstone for his refusal to distance himself from maniacs who want to kill us.

Ken Livingstone used to have our suipport but through his own stupidity and arrogance he lost it.

Why does he find it impossible to apologise for his support of Al Qaradawi?

Why does he refuse to make a pledge to never again have dealings with genocidal homophobic extremists?

Regardless of the semantics of this particular issue, I do the hope this doesn’t precede an avalanche of pro-Tory propaganda on Pink News again (remember the election? They were even chastened by broadsheet journos for putting out Tory press releases as NEWS). The word ‘Impartial’ was a punchline on these forums. Let’s face it, honest reportage would reflect that there are more of them against us than for. Ken Livingstone could drown kittens for a living and he would STILL have more decency than those Conservative MPs toadying up to Catholic kiddie f___ers like it’s going out of style.

Another attack on the left by the pro Tory Pink News. How sad. I see the anti Ken ad at the top and anothe pro Tory article despite the fact they are the most homophobic party. Am completely losing trust in this site and finding myself going to alternatives.

Granted Pink News is pro-Tory (although it didn’t change the fact that less than 10% of the LGBT population voted Tory in the last election.)

I personally am vehemently anti-Tory. i think they are appalling.

However I wouldn’t p!ss on Ken Livingstone if he was on fire.

The way he spat in our community’s face through his support and defence of the homophobic maniac Yusuf Al Qaradawi and his point blank refusal to never again knowingly welcome genocidal extremists displays the utter contempt Livingstone has for our community.

The arguments that are flying backwards and forwards appear to be partisan. It seems to me that neither Boris Johnson nor Ken Livingstone are anti-gay. They may have said or done things in the past that are antithetical to their current positions but, really, both are socially liberal.

So Glad Pink News’ Tory bias is being exposed. It hosts ‘Not Ken Again’ ads – that website is RUN BY BACK BORIS – as it says on the bottom of their webpage.

But best of all – your ‘top stories’ ranked by most popular, show this story at the top, as if its the most popular, when there are loads more with higher comments, and the story about the tories risking being unelectable if they dont back equal marriage, which was out yesterday, with three times the amount of comments, is not even listed in the Popular category!

Talk about burying bad news for the Tories! you should be renamed blue news!

PinkNews covers religion, politics, entertainment, finance, and community news for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in the UK and worldwide. Founded to produce broadsheet quality journalism for the LGBT community, we cover politics to theology in an intelligent manner.